Salvage Title

by Kevin Steverson

  “President Benter is a good one to have. Vice President Chazzig, too. I voted for both of them last cycle,” Harmon said.

  “Once we clear the Squilla from the capitol, it’s sure going to get interesting. Do you know who the president of Tretra is now?” he asked.

  “No, sir; I have no idea. You said most of all three houses were killed. How does the succession run here?” Harmon asked.

  “Gerald Bentalt, the Secretary of Agriculture, is next in line. A circuit judge will be swearing him in this afternoon,” he said.

  “Nice, that’s Twiggy’s father. He is a good choice,” Harmon said.

  “There was no choice; it is written in the Constitution. There have been a lot of changes made to it over the years. That is one they never got around to. Something tells me the party that has been in power for so long is on its way out the door. Good riddance to them,” Lieutenant General Wilton said. “But you didn’t hear me say that. No politics in the fleet and all that.”

  “Roger that, sir,” Harmon said, hiding a smile.

  “Who is Twiggy, anyway?” the general asked.

  “Lieutenant Bentalt of the ground defensive forces, sir,” Harmon answered.

  “Is he the tall guy that was in the competition? He’s been put on active status and was over by the ammo depot prepping his mech, last I saw,” he said. “We only have a few of the GDF mechs and pilots. Just the ones from their reserves. The rest were lost in the missile strikes.”

  Harmon was relieved to know that Twiggy was still in the fight. He would have to catch up with him later. Right now, he was waiting for Evelyn to come back with the other scouts. There were priorities, after all.

  An hour later, Evelyn came into the tent. Her hair was matted from wearing her helmet, but she looked just as beautiful as Harmon had ever seen. She smiled and walked right into his arms. He held her for several minutes before they broke apart, and he kissed her. The regulations could dive into a sand pit for all he cared. Besides, he wasn’t actually in the fleet.

  “Ahem. If you two are done, we have a planning session to start,” Lieutenant General Wilton said, though he was smiling as he said it. They let go and took a seat at the table. Several others were already seated.

  Around the table with Harmon and Evelyn were Clip, Lieutenant General Wilton, Twiggy, and Major Audell. Twiggy was the highest-ranking member of the ground defense forces left. Major Audell, who Harmon remembered from the Best Marine Competition, was the highest-ranking mech pilot.

  “The Squilla have set up a perimeter around the capitol grounds. We don’t know why, since most of it is one big crater, but that is where they are. From the looks of things, they plan on being there for some time. They have shell tanks dug in and covering all avenues of approach. We counted fifty defilades. The only things showing are the barrels of their guns,” Lieutenant Stacey said.

  The Squilla shell tank was a small tank operated by one occupant. It was shaped like a seashell with a low silhouette, and its main gun was a powerful laser. They had to be recharged every three or four days, and the scouts had identified several charging vehicles that were fusion-powered. All of the tanks were expected to be close to fully charged since they had only been planet-side for half a day.

  “Can’t do much about those unless we hit ‘em from above. Any missiles left in that carrier?” Twiggy asked.

  “No, they used all they had before they came down,” Clip answered. “I pulled up the ordinance inventory and checked. The missiles we have left on Salvage Title won’t work either—they have the wrong kind of guidance system. Given enough time, I could program some.”

  “We don’t have time. The sooner we clear the planet of invaders, the better. It will send a message back to their king that he needs to find some other system to invade,” said Admiral Timerton, who was present through a video call relay.

  Harmon agreed. They needed to end this quickly. Then he could start planning a trip to Jayneen’s home system to see if she could be saved. He wasn’t sure what the long-term solution might be for this whole mess, but it was something they could worry about later.

  “I have an idea. We could send in a team to plant explosives on a section of the dug-in tanks and then bring the mechs in through the hole in their defenses. Once we have taken care of the tanks, we could worry about their soldiers,” Harmon suggested.

  “That would work, but the timing has to be right. We have to hit the hole before they can roll up any backup tanks. They currently have fifty in the ground; that leaves a little over fifty available to them,” Lieutenant General Wilton said. “We can’t get in a prolonged battle with them. We are severely limited on charging stations for the mechs. Our dropships are junk, and they hit the Yatarward Industries facilities in their preparatory bombardment. There’s not much left there to help us.”

  “We have two mobile chargers that the scouts use, and now your charger in Hauler,” said Major Audell.

  “There are two chargers in Hauler’s ready room. We could run some lines and extend the plugs into the bay,” Harmon said.

  “Two? You have two mechs?” Major Audell asked.

  “No, I have two power cells in the mech,” Harmon answered, grinning.

  “No wonder that thing dominated,” Major Audell said.

  “It helps. However, in the end, it’s going to come down to old-fashioned infantry tactics,” stated Twiggy. “They have two thousand troops, and we don’t have nearly as many. Even if we add in local law enforcement, we might end up with a thousand bodies. Two-to-one is not the kind of odds we want to face against an enemy with natural armor. Unless you hit one of ‘em just right, they can shrug off most handheld laser weapons. Their exoskeletons reflect the blasts.”

  “As long as we have the use of mechs, we should be able to lower the numbers,” Harmon said.

  “True, but once their power cells run down, we are on our own two legs armed with what we can carry,” Evelyn remarked.

  “If we can get that platoon of tanks in, it can surely help support the infantry,” said Twiggy.

  “What if we use the artillery we have in conjunction with our tanks on the opposite side of their perimeter, and we hit it as a distraction?” Harmon suggested. “We can keep them occupied that way and then hit them from this side. If we keep the Hauler out at its maximum range, we can use it as part of the distraction, too. We just need to make sure it stays out of range, though, because it doesn’t have military shielding, and it is not the most maneuverable thing to fly.”

  “Yeah, not being shot would be cool with me,” Clip agreed.

  “Sounds like we have the workings of a plan,” Lieutenant General Wilton said. “How are we going to get anyone close enough to set charges without being picked up on their sensors? Any type of night optics or electronics will give them away.”

  “I have it covered, sir. Trust me,” Harmon said.

  Harmon walked out and noticed a couple people waiting on him. One was Marteen Yatarward. Curious, Harmon walked over.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Harmon, I’ve been an ass. At the academy, hell…all my life. When I found out…when I found out that my whole family had been killed in the missile attacks, I sat down and just thought. I realized credit, the company, and my name wasn’t worth squat when it comes down to it. What matters is the people around you and how you treat them. Gunny Harper here has shown me that if you respect people and treat them fairly, they’ll do the same to you. Back during the competition, I backslid a little. Hell, even then I wasn’t the guy you knew in school. Gunny let me know it after the competition, too. He was right, as usual,” Marteen said. “I have already apologized to Evelyn. I wanted to apologize to you, too.”

  Harmon took his outstretched hand and looked into Marteen’s eyes. He meant his apology; Harmon could accept it.

  “Fresh slate,” Harmon said, smiling.

  Harmon reached out to shake the gunnery sergeant’s hand, as well. It dawned on him that he recognized the man
; he had fought him in the competition.

  “Let me apologize for the ol’ one-two I gave you, Gunny,” Harmon said.

  “Hey, sir; no apology needed. Even a crusty old Marine like myself can still learn. That was a hell of thing. You have to teach that maneuver to me some time,” Gunnery Sergeant Harper said.

  That night, Big Jon and the twenty Leethog in his crew prepared to move out. They had satchels full of explosives with remote detonators, and were going to go in on the east side of the perimeter and set charges on ten of the Squilla tanks. They didn’t need any type of light enhancement; starlight provided more than enough for them. Since both moons were half full, it was like the middle of the day for them.

  “Get in, set the charges, and get out. We need to blow them up just as daylight is breaking,” Harmon said. “Twenty of us will drop from the Hauler as Clip goes over to the west side for the distraction. He is going to head out to drop off the last of the tanks as soon as they are loaded,” Harmon said.

  “In and out like the Charquin, I got it,” Big Jon said.

  “Right. What’s a Charquin?” Harmon asked.

  “She is the one who steals little ones in the night when they misbehave,” the Leethog replied. “They never see their families again.”

  “What the frost? Remind me to never get a bedtime story from a Leethog,” Clip said as he walked to the Hauler.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty

  Big Jon and his team of Leethog infiltrators split up within sight of the Capitol Center. From the tree line on the edge of the park, Big Jon could make out the tank positions. His team leaders had their instructions; it would be two to a tank. Big Jon opted to go with the youngest Leethog in the platoon. She was a little nervous, but she hid it well. From this point on, they would all communicate by hand and ear signals. He had decided that they would go in without gear to cut down on noise. Their gear was waiting for them twenty yards back in the trees and around the base of a towering oak, planted hundreds of years ago on Colony Day.

  Staff Sergeant Jontilictick and Private Jesstilgalton dropped to all fours and low crawled for two hundred meters. Big Jon looked from left to right and could barely see flashes of movement as his crew inched their way to the perimeter. Even his sensitive ears could detect very little noise from their passing. As they approached their assigned tank, he could see there was a problem.

  Jess saw it, too. She signaled to him with waving ears. She raised first one, then the other, then both at once. Trouble. Big Jon indicated he understood with his left hand. He signaled to her to stay back as he eased forward.

  The top half of the tank he had selected, just above the barrel, was open all the way back. Its occupant was not inside. He eased around the tank and saw the Squilla. By the way it kept raising and straightening its legs one at a time, it appeared as if it had exited the tank to stretch. If it decided to move around, there was a chance it might notice one of the team members placing charges. The Squilla would have to be taken out if it didn’t get back into the tank.

  Big Jon eased back and signaled for Jess to place the charges under the front of the barrel where the turret rotated. He pulled his knife and waited in the shadows. Jess placed the charges quickly and set the fuse. It was below the barrel, in its shadow, and couldn’t be seen. She eased down and disappeared into the dark in front of the tank where she waited for the staff sergeant. The Squilla climbed up on the tank to get back in but hesitated, looking over to the next tank in line.

  The Squilla raised up to get a better look; it had seen something. Big Jon couldn’t take any chances. In a flash, he was up on the front of the tank, he sank his knife into the soft slot where one of the Squilla’s eyestalks met its shell. He pulled the knife out and stabbed it deep below the other eyestalk. The Squilla never made a sound. Its legs went straight, it started convulsing, and it dropped into the tank with some of its legs sticking out above it. Big Jon stuffed the legs into the tank and shut the hatch. It was heavy, and it took everything he had to do it, but he got it closed. He stayed low, wiped his blade, and sheathed his knife. It was time to head back to the woods.

  They all met back at the tree and put their gear on. The Leethog troops all had combat gear: light armor, helmets with comms, and ammo harnesses. All of them had pistols and rifles from the ready room on the Hauler. Zerith, Hank, and Stan had modified all of them during their transits. It had given the brothers something to do that Zerith could supervise. Each Leethog had five of the fragmentation grenades, too.

  Big Jon had opted to use one of the magnetic propulsion rifles. It was similar to a railgun and launched a metal pellet at an incredible velocity. Zerith was pretty sure it would penetrate a Squilla’s body. The staff sergeant had a laser pistol strapped to his hip, as well. He was the only Leethog wearing different gear—the heavy battle armor that had been found when the weapons were discovered. Since he was over five feet tall, it fit him. It had comms, a full charge for its helmet, and the servo-assisted skeleton built in.

  The artillery barrage started just moments after the system’s star broke over the horizon. Moments later, the tanks started firing from their maximum range. The Hauler’s turrets fired on the Squilla positions on the west side of the perimeter, as well. After two salvos, the artillery stopped firing.

  Tanks on the east side blew apart, and the twenty mechs dropped inside the perimeter. Several minutes later, Major Audell led two hundred and eighty mechs through the gap, firing their railguns at the tanks on the left and right as they advanced.

  It was not without cost. The Squilla tank’s main gun was a powerful laser that took off limbs when striking a mech, although the Marines and GDF forces piloting the mechs continued to fight if they were able. Harmon saw several mechs firing their railguns even though their other arm was missing. A few were forced to eject and use their grenade rifles.

  * * *

  Harmon had done his best to even out the odds during the drop, firing missiles into the hatches of several tanks as he fell. Several of the tanks were taken out before they ever fired a shot. Although the tanks were not as mobile as the mechs, they were still tanks, and they put up a frost of a fight.

  Harmon saw the Leethog come through the gap with around fifty of the GDF soldiers. They spread out into teams of four and began moving toward the capitol building, picking off the Squilla soldiers near the building who were firing at the mechs with tripod-mounted lasers. The mechs were busy with the tanks, and the crew-served lasers had taken several of the mechs out. Harmon saw the heavy battle armor with the two extra arms, locked tight against the chest in front, several times during the battle. He knew it had to be Big Jon.

  Harmon felt his mech get knocked sideways, and he fought to stay upright. An empty missile rack had been burnt off by a laser blast from a tank. Harmon did a rocket-assisted jump and leaped up on top of the tank, and he fired his railgun at another tank on the far side of a crater. While he was firing, he brought his left arm down with the cutting laser that Zerith had attached burning at full power. There was more than one way to get to the tank’s occupant.

  Harmon fired his leg thrusters and flew above another one of the tanks that was maneuvering through the wreckage. The tank he left behind was a smoking wreck. The laser had burned through the hatch, and he had kept at it for a full thirty seconds after that. He landed and started the laser again.

  The battle lasted for several hours. After the first few frantic minutes, the Squilla tanks in reserve quit trying to maneuver out to the perimeter and had used the devastated terrain to their advantage to take long shots at the mechs. In the end, the last few tanks and some Squilla infantry had used the rubble from destroyed buildings as cover, and they had held the few mechs with ammunition at bay. Harmon was out of rocket fuel and couldn’t come over the top of them. Big Jon and several members of his team had gotten close enough to take out the soldiers and throw satchel charges underneath the last three tanks. They had succeeded, but Big Jon lost two Leethog in the
attempt.

  With the heavy forces destroyed, the only thing left to do was clear the Squilla soldiers from the rest of the capitol buildings and the city beyond. It was not going to be an easy task. There were over eighteen hundred still holed up in the buildings.

  * * *

  N’Tikah, the Squilla shell commander, had W’Coltah taken out of his sight and locked up—the coward had suggested surrendering to the humans. I should have pried his shell open in front of the claw soldiers while he screamed, he thought. That was the problem with the members of the Squilla Navy. They could not fight without their ships around them. N’Tikah and his claw soldiers would hold out until the king sent reinforcements, period.

  N’Tikah had ordered his personal aide to ensure the human carcasses were divided among the companies so his claw soldiers could eat. It would hold them for several days before they needed to gather more food. They had found some humans cowering in the basement of one of the large buildings of the system’s capitol. The ones who hadn’t died in the missile barrage did so as soon as they were found hiding. He had them cut up like chum.

  He couldn’t believe the humans of this world had such a small military, and that it had been so easily wiped out by the initial missile bombardment. He would have thought the beings inhabiting the world would have risen up to fight the invaders, but he had seen no sign of it. The local video services kept repeating over and over for them to seek shelter. It was ridiculous. If any race ever landed on Squill, the Squilla would rise from all of the seas to fight, even without weapons. They would defend the females and the young. Ridiculous.

  He heard the artillery rounds exploding as his aide came scuttling into the command center to tell him the second company commander had detected movement of enemy tanks to the west. The sound of rounds impacting inside the perimeter, as well as explosions on the front of the dug-in positions, told him the humans had finally decided to fight back. Good, he thought. We will finish this.